1000+ images about Nunavut, Canada on Pinterest | Snow goose, Beluga whale and Hunt's Forward Madeleine Qumuatuq says she’s trying to get by on a little over $300 a month of income support from the Nunavut government. “It’s really not enough to live on in a good way,” she says. “It’s a very stressful life.” Qumuatuq, of Pangnirtung, Nunavut, is one of 14,000 people in Nunavut who rely on income support for their daily needs. See More Arctic - North Pole - Seed Vault - Crystalinks Enlarge The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Alaska (United States), Canada, Finland, Greenland (Denmark), Iceland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. The Arctic region consists of a vast ocean with a seasonally varying ice cover, surrounded by treeless permafrost. The area can be defined as north of the Arctic Circle (66° 33'N), the approximate limit of the midnight sun and the polar night.

Alternatively, it can be defined as the region where the average temperature for the warmest month July is below 10° C (50° F); the northernmost tree line roughly follows the isotherm at the boundary of this region. Socially and politically, the Arctic region includes the northern territories of the eight Arctic states, although by natural science definitions much of this territory is considered subarctic. The Arctic region is a unique area among Earth's ecosystems. The cultures in the region and the Arctic indigenous peoples have adapted to its cold and extreme conditions. In recent years the extent of the sea ice has declined. Life in the Arctic includes organisms living in the ice,[5] zooplankton and phytoplankton, fish and marine mammals, birds, land animals, plants and human societies. Read more ... North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It should not be confused with the North Magnetic Pole. The North Pole is the northernmost point on the Earth, lying diametrically opposite the South Pole.

It defines geodetic latitude 90� North, as well as the direction of true north. At the North Pole all directions point south; all lines of longitude converge there, so its longitude can be defined as any degree value. While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. Since 2002, the Russians have also annually established a base, Barneo, close to the Pole. This operates for a few weeks during early spring. Studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free due to Arctic ice shrinkage, with timescales varying from 2016 to the late 21st century or later.

The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at 4,261 m (13,980 ft) by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007 and at 4,087 m (13,410 ft) by USS Nautilus in 1958. The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km (430 mi) away, though some perhaps non-permanent gravel banks lie slightly closer. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, which is located 817 km (508 mi) from the Pole. Read more ... Svalbard Global Seed Vault The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure seed bank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) from the North Pole.

Conservationist Cary Fowler, in association with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), started the vault to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds that are duplicate samples, or "spare" copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault is an attempt to insure against the loss of seeds in other genebanks during large-scale regional or global crises. The seed vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen). The Norwegian government entirely funded the vault's approximately NOK 45 million (US$9 million) construction. Storing seeds in the vault is free to end users, with Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust paying for operational costs. Primary funding for the Trust comes from such organizations as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and from various governments worldwide. Read more ... Arctic Seed Vault Opens National Geographic - February 26, 2008 Arctic In the News ....

Hottest Arctic on record triggers massive ice melt PhysOrg - December 13, 2016 The Arctic shattered heat records in the past year as unusually warm air triggered massive melting of ice and snow and a late fall freeze, US government scientists said Tuesday. The grim assessment came in the Arctic Report Card 2016, a peer-reviewed document by 61 scientists around the globe issued by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Arctic region is continuing to warm up more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, which is also expected to mark its hottest year in modern times. Climate scientists say the reasons for the rising heat include the burning of fossil fuels that emit heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, southerly winds that pushed hot air from the mid-latitudes northward, as well as the El Nino ocean warming trend, which ended mid-year. 2.7 Million-Year-Old Soil Found Deep Beneath Greenland's Ice NBC - April 20, 2014 Buried thousands of feet under Summit, the highest point on Greenland's ice sheet, is a soil born before humans walked the earth.

The 2.7-million-year-old silt is a remnant of the verdant tundra that covered Greenland before it was entombed in ice, researchers report. Pollen and plant DNA buried in the seafloor offshore of Greenland also suggest the island once had tundra and patchy forest, similar to today's high Arctic. The new findings hint that at Summit, the tundra landscape was open to the sky for 200,000 years to 1 million years before ice covered it. Why Arctic Sea Ice Melts So Quickly Live Science - January 21, 2013 During the Arctic spring and summer, ponds of freshwater appear on the melting ice, dotting the landscape with a dazzling range of blues. Despite their beauty, these melt ponds are a harbinger of climate change in the Arctic, according to a new study by researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany. The pools form more easily on young ice, and young ice now accounts for more than 50 percent of the Arctic sea ice cover. The ponds also absorb more of the sun's heat, helping ice melt faster, the study finds.

Massive Meteorite Crater Found in Canadian Arctic Live Science - August 9, 2012 Researchers in Canada's western Arctic have found evidence of a crater that formed when a huge meteorite slammed into Earth millions of years ago. Measuring about 15 miles (25 kilometers) across, the formation was named the Prince Albert impact crater after the peninsula where it was discovered. Researchers don't know exactly when it was created, but evidence suggests the crater is between 130 million and 350 million years old, according to a statement from the University of Saskatchewan. Meteors are fragments of asteroids or comets that enter Earth's atmosphere at high speeds; most are small, some as tiny as a grain of sand, so they disintegrate in the air, and only rarely are they large enough to make it to Earth's surface. When meteors slam into Earth, they are called meteorites. Simultaneous ice melt in Antarctic and Arctic PhysOrg - December 2, 2011 The end of the last ice age and the processes that led to the melting of the northern and southern ice sheets supply basic information on changes in our climate.

Although the maximum size of the ice sheet in the northern hemisphere during the last ice age is relatively well known, there is little reliable data on the dimensions of the Antarctic ice sheet. A publication appearing in the journal Science on 1 December now furnishes indications that the two hemispheres attained their maximum ice sheet size at nearly the same time and started melting 19,000 years ago. Global warming creates 'new normal' in Arctic NBC - December 2, 2011 Global warming has brought a "new normal" to the Arctic, with warmer air and ocean temperatures, thinner and less expansive summer sea ice, and greener vegetation in coastal regions abutting the open water. In addition, longer periods of open water during the annual sea-ice melt season is allowing the ocean to take up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, leading to seasonal bouts of ocean acidification in some areas.

Arctic sea ice reaches minimum 2011 extent, making it second lowest in satellite record PhysOrg - September 15, 2011 The blanket of sea ice that floats on the Arctic Ocean appears to have reached its lowest extent for 2011, the second lowest recorded since satellites began measuring it in 1979, according to the University of Colorado Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center. Mummified Forest Found on Treeless Arctic Island National Geographic - December 21, 2010 Pines, spruces buried in landslide millions of years ago, when area was warmer. An ancient mummified forest, complete with well-preserved logs, leaves, and seedpods, has been discovered deep in the Canadian Arctic, scientists say. The dry, frigid site is now surrounded by glaciers and is completely treeless, except for a few bonsai-size dwarf trees. The forest was discovered recently by a research team who'd heard a surprising story from rangers in Quttinirpaaq National Park. The park is located on Ellesmere Island (see map), one of the world's northernmost landmasses.

The rangers had come across wood scattered on the ground from much larger trees than the few dwarfs currently in the area, including logs that were several feet long. Arctic rocks may contain oldest remnants of Earth BBC - August 11, 2010 Scientists have found Arctic rocks that may preserve the earliest remnants of Earth. Over billions of years, much of the material that made up the early Earth was modified by processes such as melting and mixing. But the Arctic rocks seem to contain chemical signatures that date from just after the Earth's violent origin. Ancient Tools Revealed by Melting Arctic Ice Live Science - April 27, 2010 Ice Patch Archaeology is a recent phenomenon that began in Yukon. In 1997, sheep hunters discovered a 4,300-year-old dart shaft in caribou dung that had become exposed as the ice receded. Scientists who investigated the site found layers of caribou dung buried between annual deposits of ice. They also discovered a repository of well-preserved artifacts.

Trees invading warming Arctic will cause warming over entire region, study shows PhysOrg - January 12, 2010 Contrary to scientists' predictions that, as the Earth warms, the movement of trees into the Arctic will have only a local warming effect, University of California, Berkeley, scientists modeling this scenario have found that replacing tundra with trees will melt sea ice and greatly enhance warming over the entire Arctic region. Record Migration: Small Birds Travel 50,000 Miles Live Science - January 12, 2010 Some birds make long treks south during wintertime, but the Artic tern bests them all, flying on average 44,000 miles (70,900 km) on its annual migration from pole to pole, according to a new study. The shortest journey recorded for the tern was 36,900 miles (59,500 km) and the longest 50,700 miles (81,600 km). The study confirms what has been supposed for decades - the Arctic tern has the longest annual migration of any animal in the world.

When added up over a lifetime, the total journey for the bird is the equivalent of three trips to the moon and back. Time-Lapse Photos Show Dramatic Erosion of Alaska/Arctic Coastline Live Science - December 14, 2009 Time-lapse photography of crumbling Alaskan coastlines is helping scientists understand the "triple whammy" of forces eroding the local landscape: declining sea ice, warming ocean waters and more poundings by waves. The erosion rates from these forces are greater than anything seen along the world's coastlines, with the coast midway between Alaska's Point Barrow and Prudhoe Bay falling into the ocean in the inland direction by up to one-third the length of a football field annually, scientists have found. Strange jellies of the icy depths BBC - September 1, 2009 New details are emerging about the life-forms that survive in one of the world's most inaccessible places. Scientists have published descriptions of a range of jelly-like animals that inhabit the deep oceans of the Arctic. The animals were originally filmed and photographed during a series of submersible dives in 2005.

One of the biggest surprises is that one of the most common animals in the Arctic deep sea is a type of jellyfish that is completely new to science. The deep Arctic ocean is isolated from much of the water elsewhere on the globe. Arctic Ice in "Death Spiral," Is Near Record Low National Geographic - September 17, 2008 The Arctic Ocean's sea ice has shrunk to its second smallest area on record, close to 2007's record-shattering low, scientists report. The ice is in a "death spiral" and may disappear in the summers within a couple of decades, according to Mark Serreze, an Arctic climate expert at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. Boiling Hot Water Found in Frigid Arctic Sea Live Science - July 24, 2008 Many miles inside the Arctic Circle, scientists have found elusive vents of scalding liquid rising out of the seafloor at temperatures that are more than twice the boiling point of water. The cluster of five hydrothermal vents, also called black smokers, were discovered farther north than any others previously identified.

The vents, one of which towers four stories high, are located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Greenland and Norway, more than 120 miles farther north than other known vents. U.S. Study: Arctic Loaded with Oil and Gas Live Science - July 24, 2008 The unexplored Arctic contains about one-fifth of the world's undiscovered oil and nearly a third of the natural gas yet to be found, according to a new study. The untapped reserves are beneath the seafloor in geopolitically controversial areas above the Arctic Circle. Distant Wildfires Cause Arctic Cooling Discovery - July 22, 2008 It's hard to imagine that the raging blazes of wildfires could cool things down, but that is the conclusion of a new study. Robert Stone of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and colleagues report that wildfire smoke that reaches the Arctic has the net effect of cooling the surface by reducing the amount of sunlight that makes it through. The effect of smoke and other aerosol particles in the atmosphere is a large source of uncertainty in climate models. The new work removes some of that uncertainty.

Volcanoes erupting beneath Arctic ice MSNBC - June 28, 2008 New evidence deep beneath the Arctic ice suggests that a series of underwater volcanoes have erupted in violent explosions in the past decade. Hidden 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) beneath the Arctic surface, the volcanoes can range up to more than a mile (2 kilometers) in diameter and a few hundred yards (meters) tall. They formed along the Gakkel Ridge, a lengthy crack in the ocean crust where two rocky plates are spreading apart, pulling new melted rock to the surface. Until now, scientists thought undersea volcanoes only dribbled lava from cracks in the seafloor. The extreme pressure from the overlying water makes it difficult for gas and magma to blast outward. But the Gakkel Ridge, which is relatively unexplored and considered unique for its slow spreading rate, is just the place for surprises. Arctic Volcanoes Found Active at Unprecedented Depths National Geographic - June 27, 2008 Buried under thick ice and frigid water, volcanic explosions are shaking the Arctic Ocean floor at depths previously thought impossible, according to a new study.

Using robot-operated submarines, researchers have found deposits of glassy rock - evidence of eruptions - scattered over more than 5 square miles (15 square kilometers) of the seabed. Ice diary: Science in the fast-changing Arctic BBC - June 27, 2008 Liz Kalaugher reports from the High Arctic as she travels aboard the Amundsen, a Canadian Coast Guard vessel. She has joined an expedition investigating the effects of climate change off Banks Island. Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, Largest In Northern Hemisphere, Has Fractured Into Three Main Pieces Science Daily - April 17, 2008 A team of scientists including polar expert Dr. Derek Mueller from Trent University and Canadian Rangers have discovered that the largest ice shelf in the Northern Hemisphere has fractured into three main pieces. During their sovereignty patrol across the northernmost parts of Canada over the last two weeks, they visited a new 18 kilometre-long network of cracks running from the southern edge of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf to the Arctic Ocean. This accompanies a large central fracture that was first detected in 2002, and raises the concern that the remaining ice shelf will disintegrate within the next few years.

Mysterious "Rain on Snow" Events Tracked in Arctic National Geographic - March 4, 2008 A few warm, springlike days might sound appealing if you live in the frigid Arctic Circle. But a rise in temperature can spell doom for native peoples and the caribou, musk-oxen, and reindeer that they depend on in Earth's northernmost regions. That's because a mysterious phenomenon known as "rain on snow," when sudden warm air turns northern snows to rain or slush, can cause animals to starve. Rather than melting the snow, rain seeps through the snowpack and pools on top of the frozen soil. nWhen the extreme cold returns, the water freezes into an impermeable shell that prevents animals from grazing. Rich life emerges from nature's freezer BBC - December 27, 2007 Tiny channels in the Arctic ice support creatures that play a crucial role in climate-affected ecosystems. The Arctic ice supports, literally, the polar bear, a half-tonne behemoth of creamy-white fur and muscle and claws you would not argue with. It is highly visible and hugely iconic.

But just as the tiger and the rhinoceros depend on creatures you cannot see without a microscope and would not willingly give house room to if you could, so does the polar bear stand, literally, on a patchwork lattice of invisible, miniscule life. Life-forms such as polychaetes (or bristleworms), copepods and amphipods that live just under the ice, around its edge, or even inside the floes themselves. McCall melt links the Arctic eras BBC - December 26, 2007 "Sometimes you'd just land and set up your equipment," recalls Carl Benson, "and the pilot sees clouds rolling in and says 'I'd better get out of here, do you want to come with me or do you want to stay'? "So you push the 'plane round so they can take off, and you don't know when you're going to see them again." Dr Benson is one of a band of scientists hardier than most who have spent decades working to understand the finer workings of glaciers.

The dramatic springtime collapse of surface ozone in the Arctic has been documented by scientists BBC - December 14, 2007 Observations from a boat that drifted with the ice across the North Pole show the gas can disappear in just days. Dr Jan Bottenheim told a US conference that the precise chemical reactions involved were not fully understood. However, he said any changes to these processes as the Arctic warmed might limit the region's ability to deal with pollutants in the atmosphere. "Ozone is the source for the 'vacuum cleaner of the atmosphere' - the molecule OH. So if we don't have as much ozone, we can't make as much hydroxyl. If we then pump pollutants from mid-latitudes into the Arctic, they may just stay there," explained Dr Bottenheim. Warming 'opens Northwest Passage' BBC - September 14, 2007 The most direct shipping route from Europe to Asia is fully clear of ice for the first time since records began. Historically, the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has been ice-bound through the year. But the agency says ice cover has been steadily shrinking, and this summer's reduction has made the route navigable.

The findings, based on satellite images, raised concerns about the speed of global warming. Surprise New Arctic Inhabitants: Trees Live Science - March 9, 2007 Rising temperatures fueled by global warming are causing forests of spruce trees to invade Arctic tundra faster than scientists originally thought, evicting and endangering the species that dwell there and only there, a new study concludes.Tundra is land area where tree growth is inhibited by low temperatures and a short growing season. In the Arctic, the tundra is dominated by permafrost, a layer of permanently frozen subsoil. 'Monster' fossil find in Arctic BBC - October 5, 2006 Norwegian scientists have discovered a "treasure trove" of fossils belonging to giant sea reptiles that roamed the seas at the time of the dinosaurs. The 150-million-year-old fossils were uncovered on the Arctic island chain of Svalbard - about halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole. The finds belong to two groups of extinct marine reptiles - the plesiosaurs and the ichthyosaurs.

Arctic's tropical past uncovered BBC - May 31, 2006 Fifty-five million years ago the North Pole was an ice-free zone with tropical temperatures, according to research. A sediment core excavated from 400m (1,300ft) below the seabed of the Arctic Ocean has enabled scientists to delve far back into the region's past. An international team has been able to pin-point the changes that occurred as the Arctic transformed from this hot environment to its present cold status. north pole : definition of north pole and synonyms of north pole (English) An Azimuthal projection showing the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole. North Pole scenery The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It should not be confused with the North Magnetic Pole . The North Pole is the northernmost point on Earth, lying diametrically opposite the South Pole . It defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of true north .

At the North Pole all directions point south; all lines of longitude converge there, so its longitude can be defined as any degree value. While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass , the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice . This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Soviet Union , and later Russia, have constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. In recent years, a number of studies have predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free due to Arctic shrinkage , with timescales varying from next year [1] [2] to fifty years or more. The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at 4,261 m (13,980 ft) by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007 [3] and at 4,087 m (13,410 ft) by USS Nautilus in 1958.

[4] [5] The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island , off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km (430 mi) away, though some perhaps non-permanent gravel banks lie slightly closer. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region , Nunavut, Canada, which is located 817 km (508 mi) from the Pole. Contents See also: Polar motion The Earth's axis of rotation – and hence the position of the North Pole – was commonly believed to be fixed (relative to the surface of the Earth) until, in the 18th century, the mathematician Leonhard Euler predicted that the axis might "wobble" slightly. Around the beginning of the 20th century astronomers noticed a small apparent "variation of latitude," as determined for a fixed point on Earth from the observation of stars. Part of this variation could be attributed to a wandering of the Pole across the Earth's surface, by a range of a few meters. The wandering has several periodic components and an irregular component.

The component with a period of about 435 days is identified with the 8 month wandering predicted by Euler and is now called the Chandler wobble after its discoverer. The exact point of intersection of the Earth's axis and the Earth's surface, at any given moment, is called the "instantaneous pole", but because of the "wobble" this cannot be used as a definition of a fixed North Pole (or South Pole) when metre-scale precision is required. It is desirable to tie the system of Earth coordinates (latitude, longitude, and elevations or orography ) to fixed landforms. Of course, given plate tectonics and isostasy , there is no system in which all geographic features are fixed. Yet the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and the International Astronomical Union have defined a framework called the International Terrestrial Reference System . Expeditions Pre-1900 Gerardus Mercator 's map of the North Pole from 1595 As early as the 16th century, many eminent people correctly believed that the North Pole was in a sea, which in the 19th century was called the Polynya or Open Polar Sea .

[6] It was therefore hoped that passage could be found through ice floes at favorable times of the year. Several expeditions set out to find the way, generally with whaling ships, already commonly used in the cold northern latitudes. One of the earliest expeditions to set out with the explicit intention of reaching the North Pole was that of British naval officer William Edward Parry , who in 1827 reached latitude 82°45′ North. In 1871 the Polaris expedition , a US attempt on the Pole led by Charles Francis Hall , ended in disaster. Another British Royal Navy attempt on the pole, part of the British Arctic Expedition , by Commander Albert H. Markham reached a then-record 83°20'26" North in May 1876 before turning back. An 1879–1881 expedition commanded by US naval officer George W. DeLong ended tragically when their ship the USS Jeanette , was crushed by ice. Over half the crew, including DeLong, were lost.

Nansen's ship Fram in the Arctic ice In April 1895 the Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen struck out for the Pole on skis after leaving Nansen's icebound ship Fram . The pair reached latitude 86°14′ North before they abandoned the attempt and turned southwards, eventually reaching Franz Josef Land . In 1897 Swedish engineer Salomon August Andrée and two companions tried to reach the North Pole in the hydrogen balloon Örnen ("Eagle"), but were stranded 300 km (190 mi) north of Kvitøya , the northeasternmost part of the Svalbard archipelago, and perished on this lonely island. In 1930 the remains of this expedition were found by the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition . The Italian explorer Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi and Captain Umberto Cagni of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) sailed the converted whaler Stella Polare ("Pole Star") from Norway in 1899.

On March 11, 1900 Cagni led a party over the ice and reached latitude 86° 34’ on April 25, setting a new record by beating Nansen's result of 1895 by 35 to 40 km (22 to 25 mi). Cagni barely managed to return to the camp, remaining there until June 23. On August 16 the Stella Polare left Rudolf Island heading south and the expedition returned to Norway. 1900–1940 Peary's sledge party "at the North Pole," 1909. From left: Ooqueah, Ootah, Henson, Egingwah, Seeglo. [7] The US explorer Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the North Pole on 21 April 1908 with two Inuit men, Ahwelah and Etukishook, but he was unable to produce convincing proof and his claim is not widely accepted.

[8] The conquest of the North Pole was for many years credited to US Navy engineer Robert Peary , who claimed to have reached the Pole on 6 April 1909, accompanied by Matthew Henson and four Inuit men, Ootah, Seeglo, Egingwah, and Ooqueah. However, Peary's claim remains controversial. Those who accompanied Peary on the final stage of the journey were not trained in navigation, and thus could not independently confirm his navigational work, which some claim to have been particularly sloppy as he approached the Pole. The distances and speeds that Peary claimed to have achieved once the last support party turned back seem incredible to many people, almost three times that which he had accomplished up to that point. Peary's account of a journey to the Pole and back while traveling along the direct line – the only strategy that is consistent with the time constraints that he was facing – is contradicted by Henson's account of tortuous detours to avoid pressure ridges and open leads .

The British explorer Wally Herbert , initially a supporter of Peary, researched Peary's records in 1989 and concluded that they must have been falsified and that Peary had not reached the Pole. [9] Support for Peary came again in 2005, however, when British explorer Tom Avery and four companions recreated the outward portion of Peary's journey with replica wooden sleds and Canadian Eskimo Dog teams, reaching the North Pole in 36 days, 22 hours – nearly five hours faster than Peary. However, Avery's fastest 5-day march was 90 nautical miles, significantly short of the 135 claimed by Peary. Avery writes on his web site that "The admiration and respect which I hold for Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and the four Inuit men who ventured North in 1909, has grown enormously since we set out from Cape Columbia .

Having now seen for myself how he travelled across the pack ice, I am more convinced than ever that Peary did indeed discover the North Pole." [10] Ivan Papanin at North Pole-1 drifting station, 1937 Another rejection of Peary's claim arrived in 2009, when E. Myles Standish of the California Institute of Technology , an experienced referee of scientific claims, reported numerous alleged lacunae and inconsistencies. [11] The first claimed flight over the Pole was made on 9 May 1926 by US naval officer Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett in a Fokker tri-motor aircraft. Although verified at the time by a committee of the National Geographic Society , this claim has since been undermined [12] by the 1996 revelation that Byrd's long-hidden diary's solar sextant data (which the NGS never checked) consistently contradict his June 1926 report's parallel data by over 100 mi (160 km).

[13] The secret report's alleged en-route solar sextant data were inadvertently so impossibly overprecise that he excised all these alleged raw solar observations out of the version of the report finally sent to geographical societies five months later (while the original version was hidden for 70 years), a realization first published in 2000 by the University of Cambridge after scrupulous refereeing. [14] According to Standish, "Anyone who is acquainted with the facts and has any amount of logical reasoning can not avoid the conclusion that neither Cook, nor Peary, nor Byrd reached the North Pole; and they all knew it." [11] According to some, the first consistent, verified, and scientifically convincing attainment of the Pole was on 12 May 1926, by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his US sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth from the airship Norge . [15] Norge, though Norwegian-owned, was designed and piloted by the Italian Umberto Nobile . The flight started from Svalbard in Norway, and crossed the Arctic Ocean to Alaska.

Nobile, with several scientists and crew from the Norge, overflew the Pole a second time on 24 May 1928, in the airship Italia . The Italia crashed on its return from the Pole, with the loss of half the crew. In May 1937 the world's first North Pole ice station , North Pole-1 , was established by Soviet scientists 20 kilometres (13 mi) from the North Pole. The expedition members: oceanographer Pyotr Shirshov , meteorologist Yevgeny Fyodorov , radio operator Ernst Krenkel , and the leader Ivan Papanin [16] conducted scientific research at the station for the next nine months. By 19 February 1938, when the group was picked up by the ice breakers Taimyr and Murman, their station had drifted 2850 km to the eastern coast of Greenland. [17] [18] 1940–2000 In May 1945 an RAF Lancaster of the Aries expedition became the first Commonwealth aircraft to overfly the North Geographic and North Magnetic Poles.

The plane was piloted by David Cecil McKinley of the Royal Air Force . It carried an 11-man crew, with Kenneth C. Maclure of the Royal Canadian Air Force in charge of all scientific observations. In 2006, Maclure was honoured with a spot in Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame . [19] Discounting Peary's disputed claim, the first men to set foot at the North Pole were a Soviet party [20] including geophysicists Mikhail Ostrekin and Pavel Senko, oceanographers Mikhail Somov and Pavel Gordienko, [21] and other scientists and flight crew (24 people in total) [22] of Aleksandr Kuznetsov's Sever-2 expedition (March-May 1948). [23] It was organized by the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route .

[24] The party flew on three planes (pilots Ivan Cherevichnyy, Vitaly Maslennikov and Ilya Kotov) from Kotelny Island to the North Pole and landed there at 4:44pm ( Moscow Time , UTC+04:00 ) on April 23, 1948. [25] They established a temporary camp and for the next two days conducted scientific observations. On April 26 the expedition flew back to the continent. Next year, on May 9, 1949, [26] two other Soviet scientists (Vitali Volovich and Andrei Medvedev) [27] became the first people to parachute onto the North Pole. [28] They jumped from Douglas C-47 Skytrain , registered CCCP H-369. [29] On May 3, 1952, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher and Lieutenant William Pershing Benedict , along with scientist Albert P. Crary , landed a modified Douglas C-47 Skytrain at the North Pole.

Some Western sources considered this to be the first landing at the Pole [30] until the Soviet landings became widely known. USS Skate at the North Pole, 1959 The United States Navy submarine USS Nautilus (SSN-571) crossed the North Pole on August 3, 1958. On March 17, 1959, the USS Skate (SSN-578) surfaced at the Pole, becoming the first naval vessel to do so. [31] Setting aside Peary's claim, the first confirmed surface conquest of the North Pole was that of Ralph Plaisted , Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean Luc Bombardier, who traveled over the ice by snowmobile and arrived on April 19, 1968. The United States Air Force independently confirmed their position. On April 6, 1969, Wally Herbert and companions Allan Gill, Roy Koerner and Kenneth Hedges of the British Trans-Arctic Expedition became the first men to reach the North Pole on foot (albeit with the aid of dog teams and airdrops ).

They continued on to complete the first surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean – and by its longest axis, Barrow, Alaska to Svalbard – a feat that has never been repeated. [32] [33] Because of suggestions (later proven false) of Plaisted's use of air transport, some sources classify Herbert's expedition as the first confirmed to reach the North Pole over the ice surface by any means. [33] [34] In the 1980's, Plaisted's pilots Weldy Phipps and Ken Lee signed affidavits asserting that no such airlift was provided. [35] It is also said that Herbert was the first person to reach the pole of inaccessibility . [36] Icebreaker Arktika , the first surface ship to reach the North Pole. On August 17, 1977, the Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika completed the first surface vessel journey to the North Pole. In 1982 Ranulph Fiennes and Charles R. Burton became the first people to cross the Arctic Ocean in a single season.

They departed from Cape Crozier, Ellesmere Island , on February 17, 1982 and arrived at the geographic North Pole on April 10, 1982. They travelled on foot and snowmobile. From the Pole, they travelled towards Svalbard but, due to the unstable nature of the ice, ended their crossing at the ice edge after drifting south on an ice floe for 99 days. They were eventually able to walk to their expedition ship MV Benjamin Bowring and boarded it on August 4, 1982 at position 80:31N 00:59W. As a result of this journey, which formed a section of the three-year Transglobe Expedition 1979–1982, Fiennes and Burton became the first people to complete a circumnavigation of the world via both North and South Poles, by surface travel alone. This achievement remains unchallenged to this day. In 1985, Sir Edmund Hillary (the first man to stand on the summit of Mount Everest) and Neil Armstrong (the first man to stand on the moon) landed at the North Pole in a small twin-engined ski plane.

Hillary thus became the first man to stand at both poles and on the summit of Everest. In 1986, Will Steger , with seven teammates, became the first to be confirmed as reaching the Pole by dogsled and without resupply. On September 7, 1991, the German research vessel Polarstern and the Swedish icebreaker Oden reached the North Pole as the first conventional powered vessels. [37] Both scientific parties and crew took oceanographic and geological samples and had a common tug of war and a football game on an ice floe. Polarstern again reached the pole exactly 10 years later [38] with the Healy . 21st century USS Charlotte at the North Pole in 2005 In recent years, journeys to the North Pole by air (landing by helicopter or on a runway prepared on the ice) or by icebreaker have become relatively routine, and are even available to small groups of tourists through adventure holiday companies. Parachute jumps have frequently been made onto the North Pole in recent years.

The first attempt at underwater exploration of the North Pole was made by a Russian firefighter and diver Andrei Rozhkov with a support of Diving Club of Moscow State University on April 22, 1998 but ended in fatality. The next attempted dive at the North Pole was organized by the same club next year, on April 24, 1999, and was successful. The divers were Michael Wolff (Austria), Brett Cormick (UK) and Bob Wass (USA). [39] In 2005, the United States Navy submarine USS Charlotte (SSN-766) surfaced through 155 cm (61 in) of ice at the North Pole and spent 18 hours there. [40] In July 2007, British endurance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh completed a 1 km (0.62 mi) swim at the North Pole. His feat, undertaken to highlight the effects of climate change , took place in clear water that had opened up between the ice floes.

[41] His later attempt to paddle a kayak to the North Pole in late 2008, following the erroneous prediction of clear water to the Pole, was stymied when his expedition found itself stuck in thick ice after only three days. The expedition was then abandoned. By September 2007 the North Pole had been visited 66 times by different surface ships: 54 times by Soviet and Russian icebreakers, 4 times by Swedish Oden , 3 times by German RV Polarstern , 3 times by USCGC Healy and USCGC Polar Sea , and once by CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent and by Norwegian Vidar Viking .

[42] 2007 descent to the North Pole seabed MIR submersible , one of the two vehicles that were used in the first ever manned descent to the seabed under the North Pole On August 2, 2007, a Russian scientific expedition Arktika 2007 made the first ever manned descent to the ocean bottom at the North Pole, to a depth of 4.3 km (2.7 mi), as part of a research programme in support of Russia's 2001 extended continental shelf claim to a large swathe of the Arctic Ocean bottom. The descent took place in two MIR submersibles and was led by Soviet and Russian polar explorer Artur Chilingarov . In a symbolic act of visitation, the Russian flag was placed on the seabed at the exact position of the Pole. [43] [44] [45] [46] The expedition is the latest in a decades-long series of moves by Russia intended to show that it is the dominant influence in the Arctic .

[47] The warming Arctic climate and summer retreat of sea ice there has suddenly turned the attention of countries from China to the United States toward the top of the world, where resources and shipping routes may soon be exploitable. [48] MLAE-2009 Expedition In 2009 Russian expedition MLAE-2009 reached the North Pole in two custom built amphibious "Yemelya" vehicles [49] designed by the prominent Russian explorer, adventurer and engineer Vasily Elagin. The expedition has been organized by the Russian Geographical Society [50] and the Russian Book of Records recorded the journey as the first expedition in the history of Arctic exploration to reach the Geographic North Pole using wheeled land auto vehicles. MLAE-2009 expedition crew reached the North Pole on April 26th 2009 at 1730 (Moscow time). A subsequent expedition, MLAE-2011 , followed two years later in 2011. Day and night The sun at the North Pole is continuously above the horizon during the summer and continuously below the horizon during the winter.

Sunrise is just before the March equinox (around March 19); the sun then takes three months to reach its highest point of near 23½° elevation at the summer solstice (around June 21), after which time it begins to sink, reaching sunset just after the September equinox (around September 24). When the sun is visible in the polar sky, it appears to move in a horizontal circle above the horizon. This circle gradually rises from near the horizon just after the vernal equinox to its maximum elevation (in degrees) above the horizon at summer solstice and then sinks back toward the horizon before sinking below it at the autumnal equinox. A civil twilight period of about two weeks occurs before sunrise and after sunset, a nautical twilight period of about five weeks occurs before sunrise and after sunset and an astronomical twilight period of about seven weeks occurs before sunrise and after sunset. These effects are caused by a combination of the Earth's axial tilt and its revolution around the sun. The direction of the Earth's axial tilt, as well as its angle relative to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun, remains very nearly constant over the course of a year (both change very slowly over long time periods).

At northern midsummer the North Pole is facing towards the sun to its maximum extent. As the year progresses and the Earth moves around the sun, the North Pole gradually turns away from the sun until at midwinter it is facing away from the Sun to its maximum extent. A similar sequence is observed at the South Pole, with a six-month time difference. Time In most places on Earth, local time is determined by longitude, such that the time of day is more-or-less synchronised to the position of the sun in the sky (for example, at midday the sun is roughly at its highest). This line of reasoning fails at the North Pole, where the sun rises and sets only once per year, and all lines of longitude, and hence all time zones, converge. There is no permanent human presence at the North Pole, and no particular time zone has been assigned. Polar expeditions may use any time zone that is convenient, such as Greenwich Mean Time , or the time zone of the country they departed from. Climate Arctic shrinkages of 2007 compared to 2005 and also compared to the 1979–2000 average.

The North Pole is significantly warmer than the South Pole because it lies at sea level in the middle of an ocean (which acts as a reservoir of heat), rather than at altitude in a continental land mass. Winter (January) temperatures at the North Pole can range from about −43 °C (−45 °F) to −26 °C (−15 °F), perhaps averaging around −34 °C (−29 °F). Summer temperatures (June, July and August) average around the freezing point (0 °C (32 °F)). The highest temperature yet recorded is 5 °C (41 °F), much warmer than the South Pole's record high of only −13.5 °C (7.7 °F). [51] The sea ice at the North Pole is typically around 2 to 3 m (6 ft 7 in to 9 ft 10 in) thick, [52] although ice thickness, its spatial extent, and the fraction of open water within the ice pack can vary rapidly and profoundly in response to weather and climate. [53] Studies have shown that the average ice thickness has decreased in recent years.

[54] It is likely that global warming has contributed to this, but it is not possible to attribute the recent abrupt decrease in thickness entirely to the observed warming in the Arctic. [55] Reports have also predicted that within a few decades the Arctic Ocean will be entirely free of ice in the summer. [56] This may have significant commercial implications; see "Territorial Claims," below. The retreat of the Arctic sea ice will accelerate global warming, as less ice cover reflects less solar radiation, and may have serious climate implications by contributing to Arctic cyclone generation. [57] Flora and fauna Polar bears are believed rarely to travel beyond about 82° North owing to the scarcity of food, though tracks have been seen in the vicinity of the North Pole, and a 2006 expedition reported sighting a polar bear just 1 mi (1.6 km) from the Pole. [58] [59] The ringed seal has also been seen at the Pole, and Arctic foxes have been observed less than 60 km (37 mi) away at 89°40′ N.

[60] [61] Birds seen at or very near the Pole include the Snow Bunting , Northern Fulmar and Black-legged Kittiwake , though some bird sightings may be distorted by the tendency of birds to follow ships and expeditions. [62] Fish have been seen in the waters at the North Pole, but these are probably few in number. [62] A member of the Russian team that descended to the North Pole seabed in August 2007 reported seeing no sea creatures living there. [44] However, it was later reported that a sea anemone had been scooped up from the seabed mud by the Russian team and that video footage from the dive showed unidentified shrimps and amphipods . [63] Territorial claims to the North Pole and Arctic regions Main article: Territorial claims in the Arctic Under international law , no country currently owns the North Pole or the region of the Arctic Ocean surrounding it.

The five surrounding Arctic countries, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark (via Greenland), and the United States (via Alaska), are limited to a 200- nautical-mile (370 km; 230 mi) exclusive economic zone around their coasts, and the area beyond that is administered by the International Seabed Authority . Upon ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea , a country has a ten year period to make claims to an extended continental shelf beyond its 200 mile exclusive economic zone. If accepted, such a claim gives the claimant state rights to what may be on or beneath the sea bottom within the claimed zone. [64] Norway (ratified the convention in 1996 [65] ), Russia (ratified in 1997 [65] ), Canada (ratified in 2003 [65] ) and Denmark (ratified in 2004 [65] ) have all launched projects to base claims that certain areas of Arctic continental shelves should be subject to their sole sovereign exploitation.

[66] [67] In 1907 Canada invoked a "sector principle" to claim sovereignty over a sector stretching from its coasts to the North Pole. Although this claim has not been relinquished, neither has it been consistently pressed. [68] Cultural associations In some Western cultures , the geographic North Pole is described as being the location of the workshop and residence of Santa Claus , although the depictions have been inconsistent between the geographic and magnetic North Pole. Canada Post has assigned postal code H0H 0H0 to the North Pole (referring to Santa's traditional exclamation of " Ho ho ho !"). [69] This association reflects an age-old esoteric mythology of Hyperborea that posits the North Pole, the otherworldly world-axis, as the abode of God and superhuman beings (see Joscelyn Godwin , Arktos: The Polar Myth). The popular figure of the pole-dwelling Santa Claus thus functions as an archetype of spiritual purity and transcendence. [70] As Henry Corbin has documented, the North Pole plays a key part in the cultural worldview of Sufism and Iranian mysticism.

"The Orient sought by the mystic, the Orient that cannot be located on our maps, is in the direction of the north, beyond the north." [71] Owing to its remoteness, the Pole is sometimes identified with a mysterious mountain of ancient Islamic tradition called Mount Qaf (Jabal Qaf), the "farthest point of the earth". [72] [73] According to certain authors, the Jabal Qaf of Muslim cosmology is a version of Rupes Nigra , a mountain whose ascent, like Dante's climbing of the Mountain of Purgatory , represents the pilgrim's progress through spiritual states. [74] In Iranian theosophy, the heavenly Pole, the focal point of the spiritual ascent, acts as a magnet to draw beings to its "palaces ablaze with immaterial matter." [75] Fantasy flights often refer to a flight to the North Pole for these same reasons. See also

Question: Located just 508 miles from the North Pole, Alert is said to be the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world. In which Canadian province/territory is it located?
Answer: Nunavut